Tag Archive for: The Military

Trump Could Scrap Biden’s Trans Troops Policy ‘as Soon as Day One’

/in , , , , , , , , , , , , , , /by

While there aren’t a lot of familiar faces from Donald Trump’s first term, Americans are hoping there will be some familiar policies. From the border wall to tax cuts, voters have made it clear that the last thing they want is a continuation of Biden’s radical social agenda. And nowhere is that more critical than the United States military.

Of course, the president-elect is used to inheriting messes. (He spent four years cleaning up Barack Obama’s.) This time around, the repeat commander-in-chief will have his hands equally full. Morale is in the (gender-free) toilet, deadly conflicts blaze around the world, readiness and retention are in the basement, and our technology is about to become a distant second to China’s. Since the day Joe Biden walked into the Oval Office, he’s been too obsessed with advancing the culture war to fight the real ones. And until that changes, the shortfall of troops won’t either.

From everything (and everyone) Trump has appointed, the next administration has a good grip on the severity of the crisis. If the collective meltdown over Pete Hegseth’s nomination to head-up the Defense Department is any indication, the military is about to undergo a top-to-bottom overhaul. And not a moment too soon.

And based on the latest reports, the 47th president knows exactly where to start: with the rollback of Biden’s devastating transgender policy. Sources from inside Trump camp say priority number one is weeding out the thousands of gender-confused troops this administration welcomed into the ranks under the guise of “inclusion.” Unlike last time, when Trump tried to undo the Obama trans policy with tweets, the president-elect is said to be planning an executive order that would put the brakes on transgender service on day one.

According to The Independent, “The ban is expected to be wider ranging than a similar order made during his first term in office, when Trump prevented transgender people joining the armed forces, but allowed those already serving to keep their jobs. President Biden rescinded the order, but this time even those with decades of service will be removed from their posts, according to several sources.”

While no one has a real read on how many troops would be affected — liberal sources say upwards of 15,000 — the Pentagon counted 2,200 servicemembers who had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2021 of the country’s 1.3 million active-duty personnel.

Though the Trump team refuses to confirm its plans on the policy, the Left is already in a panic, spinning a web of lies in advance of the change. “There is no money being spent,” Paulo Batista, one of the Navy’s trans-identifying analysts lied. “It’s just continued care.” But that “continued care” — at a bare minimum — includes a refrigerator full of hormones that costs upwards of $3,700 per person, per year, according to the National Library of Medicine. The actual transition surgery can range from an eye-popping $20,000 to more than $150,000 depending on the complexity of the operation.

No one has to guess where Hegseth, Trump’s pick to lead the DOD, stands on the topic. The young veteran has been extremely vocal about his frustrations with our woke military, calling the current leadership “weak” and “effeminate.” This whole idea of taxpayer-funded medical care for these troops (which FRC calculated before Bidenflation to cost the nation billions of dollars in hormones, surgeries, counselors, and lost service time) is “an extravagance the Pentagon cannot afford,” he argued. To waste this kind of money on such a small population is “trans lunacy,” Hegseth fumed, to say nothing of the “complications” it causes.

Lt. Colonel (Ret.) Robert Maginnis, FRC’s senior fellow for National Defense, made the point that if Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) supports single-sex facilities in the Capitol, “the same should be true for the U.S. military.” “For readiness reasons, all transgender persons ought to be booted out of the ranks,” he insisted.

Of course, as he explained, all of this has its roots in the past two decades of the Left’s “confused sexuality.” “Early in the 20th century, the military considered gender dysphoria a mental condition and refused to enlist such persons. Then in 1993, President Bill Clinton came to the White House promising to lift the Pentagon’s long-standing ban on homosexuals. Clinton’s directive resulted in the policy known as ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ … [Then], eventually, President Barack Obama pulled the plug on that policy promising sexual orientation was not a barrier to service in the military.”

Back then, Maginnis pointed out to The Washington Stand, “military personnel with common sense knew all too well that sex in an already limited-privacy setting, especially same-sex attraction, is a readiness issue and always will be. Unfortunately, the woke Left under President Joe Biden pretends otherwise and uses his political power to throw sanity overboard. Today, the Pentagon’s ranks include allegedly thousands of transgender personnel” that hinder America’s ability to fight and win wars.

Practically speaking, Biden’s policy doesn’t even make sense. A trans-identifying person needs a steady stream of hormones and drugs, “which means that he or she can’t deploy overseas and must remain under a doctor’s constant care. That’s an extravagance the Pentagon cannot afford because it detracts from combat readiness.”

Before the election, Trump vowed to scrap all of the wokeness plaguing our military, Maginnis continued, “which includes the transgender issue.” The reasons are obvious, he underscored: “Our service members have a full plate preparing for war, and any distractions or unnecessary drain on our precious resources must be eliminated. Besides, there are likely more healthy, well-adjusted people who would take their place in the ranks if the Pentagon dumps the woke nonsense and focuses on what’s important to our national defense.”

To those who say America can’t afford to lose thousands of personnel “at a time when the military can’t recruit enough people,” as one source complained, the administration didn’t think twice about booting 8,000 qualified men and women from the ranks when they refused the COVID vaccine. Where were the alarmists then?

In this instance, the impact can only be positive. As Maginnis reminds everyone, “Trans-identifying troops are non-deployable, and they create a health care burden. We only recruit and retain those who advance readiness.” In dangerous times like these, he cautioned, “We need every service member to be ready to deploy. For every non-deployable person like the trans soldier, another service member must be sent in their place. That creates additional burdens on an exhausted force and hurts morale.”

Not to mention, if the military can reject someone for a mild peanut allergy or flat feet or taking Adderall for six months as a child, why on earth would it accept the ongoing distraction of recruits with mental health issues and ongoing medical needs?

As Major General (Ret.) Joseph Arbuckle said on Monday’s “Washington Watch,” “There is no right to serve in the military. Nobody has that right. Standards drive performance, and if the trans community cannot meet those standards, and if they’re not prepared to deploy physically or mentally because of that, then they should not be serving. That’s the bottom line.” Congressman Mark Alford (R-Mo.), who was guest hosting the show, agreed. “The enemy doesn’t really care what your pronoun is.”

During an exchange with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in a hearing, Alford remembers saying, “‘[I]f we go … right now across the Potomac, and we look down at those white tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery, would you be able to tell me the skin color or the gender or the pronoun of that person?’ And [Austin] said, ‘No.’ And I said, ‘That’s because our diversity is not our strength. Our strength is from our unity of our common purpose.’”

When Trump strips DEI out of the military, he’ll restore a lot of morale that Arbuckle thinks is “suffering through the ranks right now, because the mission focus has been taken away.” “So I see the morale coming up. I see recruitment coming up. I see retention coming up. And our combat effectiveness. … That’s exactly what we need.”

At the end of the day, political correctness doesn’t win wars — and it’s time to put an end to policies that pretend it does.

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Tugging a Strand of History: Feminism, Communism, and Transgender Bathrooms

PERKINS: Capitol Bathroom Debate Is a Symptom of Much Deeper Problems

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Pete Hegseth Must Reform ‘Woke’ Military: Congressman

/in , , , , , , , , , /by

As Democrats deride President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of Pete Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense, one congressman says Hegseth is just the man to turn the Biden-Harris administration’s “woke and weaponized” military into a “strong and focused” fighting force. The president’s proposal to remove underperforming or politicized generals would actually depoliticize a Pentagon that once again failed its annual audit, he added.

Hegseth, an Ivy League graduate who served in the military, has been “wrongly criticized” as a lightweight, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” on Monday. “We’re going to get a strong and focused military. Pete Hegseth has written books about it. He’s a well-educated, very successful combat veteran as an infantry officer, and I think he’s the right kind of leader. We have to get him confirmed.”

Trump’s Warrior Board Will Cut ‘Bloated’ Military

Democrats and the legacy media lumped in criticism of Hegseth with concern over President-elect Trump’s proposed executive order establishing a Warrior Board to review, and possibly remove, three- and four-star generals who moved up the ranks due more to their political views than their military prowess.

“Our senior ranks are already bloated. We have one officer for every nine enlisted soldiers. When we won World War II, we had one officer for every 30 enlisted soldiers,” Davidson told Perkins. “We’re very top heavy.”

Removing military officers has occurred numerous times under Democratic presidents. Barack Obama purged 197 military officers over five years. In 1941, during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s third term, General George C. Marshall removed 600 officers over age or physical fitness concerns.

The Left has tried to portray this as part of the president-elect’s “war on democracy” and “norms.” On Sunday, “ABC This Week” host Martha Raddatz asked if Trump plans to “fire or arrest” generals “he considers woke, or those close to former Chairman Mark Milley.” Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), just elected Michigan’s next senator, dismissed the tribunal as a “kangaroo court” that would, for the first time, introduce politics into the military. “I think we’re really at risk of politicizing the military in a way that we can’t put the genie back in the bottle,” said Slotkin.

But Davidson says the board would reverse the damage done by the Biden-Harris administration.

Observers Say Clinton, Obama-Biden-Harris Politicized the Military, Not Trump

The Clinton and Obama-Biden-Harris administrations politicized the military by using it as a tool for social experimentation, critics say. Bill Clinton’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy allowed closeted homosexuals to join the military for the first time in 1993. Barack Obama liberalized the policy, and the Biden-Harris administration extended it to transgender-identifying Americans. The Democratic administrations forced soldiers to sit through LGBTQ political propaganda at each step of the way. Biden-Harris also emphasized critical race theory and so-called Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

The U.S. Navy produced a widely mocked video in 2022 schooling soldiers on how the “proper” use of pronouns helps create “a safe space for everybody.” A video in the Navy’s online recruitment pilot program the following May featured a drag queen who uses the name “Harpy Daniels” (2nd Class Petty Officer Joshua Kelly). The entire DOD referred to male and female service members with the gender-neutral pronoun “themself” in its Manual of Military Decorations and Awards last August 7, before reversing itself weeks later.

“One of the key woke elements they created is this three letter acronym, DEI: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” said Davidson. But DEI officers “are really just political officers” who “politicize every department, and they’re clearly doing it in the Department of Defense.” The Biden-Harris administration requested $114.7 million for the Pentagon to teach “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” (DEIA) to the U.S. armed forces and deeply embed “DEIA values, objectives, and considerations in how we do business and execute our missions” last year.

That built on the administration’s commitment to critical race theory (CRT). As The Washington Stand’s Dan Hart reported, in 2022, “more than 600 documents were uncovered showing that West Point cadets are being immersed in CRT, with lessons on how ‘whiteness’ is ‘a location of structural advantage, of race privilege,’ how ‘racism is ordinary’ and ‘White Americans have primarily benefited from civil rights legislation.’” The materials directed cadets to use CRT principles to form their answers.

The Washington Stand’s Suzanne Bowdey produced a list of 25 incidences of the military promoting the woke agenda in the Biden-Harris administration’s first 21 months:

  1. January 2021: Biden Welcomes Transgenderism back into the Military, Scrapping Trump Policy
  2. January 2021: Army Punishes Chaplain for Opposing Transgenderism in the Ranks
  3. March 2021: Pentagon Launches Extremist Stand-Down
  4. March 2021: White House Announces Taxpayer-Funded Gender Reassignments for Troops
  5. March 2021: Navy under Fire for Reading List that Promotes America as ‘Systemically Racist’
  6. May 2021: Space Force Suspends Lt. Colonel for Denouncing Marxism
  7. June 2021: DOD Asks for Money to Combat Climate Change
  8. June 2021: Critical Race Theory Infiltrates U.S. Military Academies
  9. June 2021: Military Defends Drag Show at Largest Training Center as ‘Essential to Morale’
  10. June 2021: Pentagon Warns Chaplains to Affirm the LGBT Lifestyle
  11. February 2022: Army Introduces Strategy to Fight the ‘National Security Threat’ of Global Warming
  12. April 2022: Military Offers ‘Compassionate Reassignments’ for Service Members in Red States
  13. April 2022: Defense Secretary Considers Adding Nonbinary or ‘Polygender’ Troops to Ranks
  14. May 2022: Air Force Library Forced to Cancel Drag Queen Story Hour after GOP Pressure
  15. June 2022: Marines Celebrate Pride Month with Rainbow Bullets
  16. June 2022: Gratuitous Pride Tweets Circulate across the Branches
  17. June 2022: Pentagon Hosts ‘Transgender Visibility and Progress’ Event
  18. June 2022: Langley Air Force Base Hosts a Taxpayer-Funded Drag Queen Show
  19. June 2022: Democratic Leaders Resurrect Push for Women in the Draft
  20. June 2022: Navy Launches Training Video on the Correct Use of Personal Pronouns
  21. June 2022: Army Investigates Chaplain for Celebrating the End of Roe v. Wade
  22. June 2022: Pentagon Expands Access, Leave, and Travel for Service Member Abortions
  23. September 2022: Veterans Affairs Announces the Start of Taxpayer-Funded Abortions
  24. September 2022: Military Accused of Indoctrinating Kids with Woke Gender Ideology, CRT in Base Schools
  25. September 2022: Air Force Cadets Warned Not to Use ‘Gendered’ Words like ‘Mom,’ ‘Dad’

The Biden-Harris administration also denied religious exemptions for those who refused to take the COVID-19 jabs, firing thousands of soldiers who refused to take the then-experimental shot.

Biden officials “know that, by and large, the vast majority of men and women who serve in the military lean to the Right. And those 260,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who did not take the vaccine are probably far more conservative,” said Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) at the time. Only 43 of the roughly 8,000 soldiers dismissed for refusing to take the untested injection had sought to reenlist in the armed forces, according to military data furnished to CNN last October, the last full fiscal year of the Biden-Harris administration.

All of these ideas have impacted recruitment. The Army exceeded its 2023 recruitment goal of 55,000 by a mere 300 enlistees. The other service branches posted similar numbers. The number of men volunteering for military service has declined by 35% over the last decade, much of it during the Obama-Biden-Harris years.

Slotkin acknowledged in passing that “there’s issues with recruiting” but felt the Pentagon’s “equity” agenda remains worthwhile, because “we want a diverse force.”

“You inherently build a diverse unit [when] you take the most talented people at each of the skill sets required to succeed,” replied Davidson, “and the unit flourishes.” Unit cohesion and “the ability to shoot, move, and communicate lethal force is what makes our military strong.”

The news comes as the Pentagon has once again failed its audit.

Defense Department Fails Seventh Audit in a Row

On Sunday, the Biden-Harris administration’s Defense Department announced it had failed an audit for the seventh time, failing to account for how it spent its $824 billion budget. Of the 28 components of the Pentagon’s audit, only nine passed with an unmodified opinion; more than half (15 of 28) received a failing report with disclaimers.

Administration figures dismissed claims they were guilty of nonfeasance. “I do not say we failed,” said Michael McCord, the Biden-Harris administration’s undersecretary of Defense comptroller and chief financial officer, last Friday. “We have about half clean opinions; we have half that are not clean opinions. So, if someone had a report card that is half good and half not good, I don’t know that you call the student or the report card a failure.”

A 50% grade is, indeed, a failing grade even under the most generous grading system.

The DOD, which has never passed an audit since they became legally mandated in 2018, is the only major government agency not to pass an audit.

McCord says passing an audit by 2028 is achievable — but not at the DOD’s current performance. “If you draw a trend line … back from when we started, from year one to year seven, I don’t think it’s going to show you’re getting there in time if you don’t continue to pick up the pace,” said McCord.

Concerns have percolated for years about Pentagon accountability. Liberal comedian Jon Stewart broached the topic during an April 2023 interview with Biden administration Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, calling it a potential sign of “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

“The fact that DOD has not passed an audit is not suggestive of waste, fraud, and abuse. That is completely false right there,” deflected Hicks. “It’s suggestive that we don’t have an accurate inventory of what we have where.”

“So, in my world, that is waste,” replied Stewart.

As Hicks laughed dismissively at his argument, a staid Stewart replied, “I’m not looking to pick a fight with you, but I am surprised that the reaction to these questions is, ‘You don’t know what an audit is, Bucko.’”

The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) requires the Pentagon to have a clean audit by 2028. “The fiscal and national security benefits that will come with the Pentagon finally being able to account for all of its assets are literally immeasurable and will continue to be until it gets its financial house in order,” said U.S. Taxpayers for Common Sense. “Congress should help push it over the finish line.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Trio of Trump Picks Creates Headaches for GOP

/in , , , , , , , /by

You know it’s a surreal time in Washington, D.C. when Senator John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is the Democrat making the most sense. While his party has a collective “freakout” over Donald Trump’s potential hires, the Senate’s resident hoodie-wearer was asked if he’s as panicked as his colleagues about the president-elect’s Cabinet choices. “It’s still not even Thanksgiving yet,” he told CNN. “And if we’re having meltdowns, you know, every tweet or every appointment or all of those things, I mean, it’s going to be four years.”

And yes, while Trump probably did have fun “trolling” Democrats with some of these picks, as Fetterman said, they’re not the only ones with reservations. At least three of the president’s nominees are giving both parties heartburn heading into the holidays: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Matt Gaetz, and Pete Hegseth. Welcome to the job, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.). You’ve just been handed a political nightmare.

Philip Wegmann, White House Correspondent for Real Clear Politics, said this all clears up one thing: “This is Donald Trump’s transition and no one else’s.” Wegmann, who joined Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Saturday’s “This Week on the Hill” thought — like many people — that the president-elect was “playing it safe” with his first string of announcements. “There was a bit of bipartisan consensus behind a pick like, say, Florida Senator Marco Rubio for Secretary of State. That’s someone who is certainly well-qualified for that position. … And then came some of these more unconventional picks. Pete Hegseth for Department of Defense Secretary, Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence, and then most recently, Florida Representative Matt Gaetz for Attorney General. What that tells you is that it is Donald Trump, fundamentally, who is making these decisions — and him alone. It’s not an advisor. It’s not any outside group. It’s him.”

The only decision he couldn’t control was Thune’s promotion. While Trump didn’t weigh in personally on the Republican leadership race in the Senate, plenty of his surrogates did. And in the end, the pressure they exerted didn’t sway the more insulated chamber. “The reason why I think that we should still put a pin in this and watch closely,” Wegmann said of Thune and his party, “is that there’s sort of a bubbling frustration among the right flank. … With how things are going … Republicans are of the opinion that Donald Trump has a mandate after winning the Electoral College and also the popular vote. And so, the question is, when someone like Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has shown that he is ready to move the ball down the field, are Senate Republicans also going to be team players here?”

While Senator Marco Rubio, Lee Zeldon, and others are “no-brainers” for the administration, as Perkins called them, there are other question marks, like South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem (R), who, apart from the hysteria her dead puppy created, lost plenty of fans when she caved on popular girls’ sports protections. As Wegmann acknowledged, Noem has had “a bit of a fall from grace certainly.” But, he predicted, “I’m not certain that we’re going to see Republicans abandon ship here.” Heading Homeland Security may seem like a big job, but “I think she is seen sort of as a key piece here who’s going to compliment Tom Homan, the border czar.”

Although Gaetz may lead the pack of controversial picks, equally triggering to Democrats (and many conservatives) is the nod for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head Health and Human Services (HHS). “You want to talk about a realignment?” Wegmann asked. “RFK Jr. represents so much of what is new from Donald Trump, because of Trump’s ability to reach out to Independent voters who are perhaps homeless among the two-party system,” he pointed out. “But let’s not forget RFK Jr. [is] a Catholic individual, but he also supports abortion rights. He’s very skeptical of pharmaceutical companies, but he’s also anti-Big Bank, anti-Big Business. He’s an environmentalist. This is one of these guys who sort of breaks the mold. And Democrats, I don’t think many of them are going to lend their support to RFK Jr. at HHS. I’m curious to see if there will be many Republican defections.”

If former Vice President Mike Pence got a vote, it would be an emphatic no. “The Trump-Pence administration was unapologetically pro-life for our four years in office. There are hundreds of decisions made at HHS every day that either lead our nation toward a respect for life or away from it, and HHS under our administration always stood for life,” Pence insisted on Friday. “I believe the nomination of RFK Jr. to serve as Secretary of HHS is an abrupt departure from the pro-life record of our administration and should be deeply concerning to millions of Pro-Life Americans who have supported the Republican Party and our nominees for decades,” he declared.

Perkins, for his part, said he’d be “willing to sit down and talk” with the moderate but admitted he has “reservations.” “For me, the sanctity of human life and that moral fabric of our nation, that foundation, is absolutely critical. I’d have to have some assurances there for now. Put me in the skeptical column when it comes to RFK.”

The nomination that has had the most heads spinning is Gaetz’s, which took even his own party by surprise. As Axios tells it, the announcement was met with “audible gasps by House Republicans” in the conference meeting last week. “The reason why this is interesting,” Wegmann believes, “is that if you talk to Gaetz allies, they’ll say that in preparation for this contentious confirmation battle, he’s burning the ships like Cortez. … If you talk to folks who are a bit more cynical, the timing here is very curious. The House Ethics Committee was preparing to release a report concerning [the] activity of Mr. Gaetz and an allegedly underage girl,” he explained, “and by leaving Congress that effectively stymies that effort. … [T]hat was sort of the speculation that perhaps he was leaving early to avoid that accountability.”

Of course, as both men made clear, once a member leaves Congress, they are no longer under the jurisdiction of the Ethics Committee, so the investigation is — for all intents and purposes — dead. But there is the very real possibility that Democrats could leak it out as the nomination advances. What Wegmann has heard is that the report is a “grenade,” and it’s “only a matter of time before it explodes.” Democrats, after all, “have an incentive for this information to get out there, but they don’t want it to go off right now. They want to wait until it’s able to inflict maximum damage. Then there are some Republicans who would rather this information get out earlier, so the president-elect can either reexamine his choice or perhaps Gaetz can bow out.”

The “conference-splitter,” as Axios called him, got a cool reception from senators like Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and others who don’t seem anxious to give Trump a pass on this one. “This shows why the advice and consent process is so important,” Collins said, hinting that she won’t be so quick to let the president-elect bypass the traditional vetting with recess appointments. Murkowski stressed that Gaetz wasn’t even “a serious candidate.” “If I wanted to make a joke, maybe I would say now I’m waiting for [disgraced former Congressman] George Santos to be named.”

Of the three nominees who are most outside the box, Fox News’s Pete Hegseth is probably getting the most movement support. Several columnists are making the argument that the young veteran is plenty experienced, despite the Left’s shrieks to the contrary. The rumblings over his personal life have certainly given his detractors fodder, but others believe he is skilled enough — and determined enough — to overhaul the military and purge the Defense Department of four years of social experimentation.

Still, the thought “makes the Left go crazy,” Wegmann admitted. “But this is someone who was in the Armed Services for 20 years. He has won medals, and his nomination makes sense if you look at his book, if you look at the Shawn Ryan interview. This is someone who is absolutely on fire for reforming the Pentagon and going after sort of the woke excesses there. I think that’s why Donald Trump picked him. And Hegseth will be prepared for that confirmation hearing. You don’t get to be on TV every weekend if you’re not quick on your feet. I think he’s got a good shot.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED: TAKE ACTION: Urge Senate Majority Leader Thune to strongly stand for the values represented by the November 5th voter mandate

RELATED VIDEOS:

Rep. Ralph Norman, “Matt Gaetz is one of the brightest legal minds.”

Jim Jordan Highlights Why Matt Gaetz Should be AG

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Truth Breeds Trust, Deceit Breeds Destruction

/in , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , /by

Americans’ trust in mass media has stumbled to 31%, the lowest measurement since Gallup first asked the question in 1972, while those with absolutely no trust in the media has climbed to 36%. Trust in the media is higher among Democrats (54%) than Republicans (12%) and among senior citizens (43%) than those aged 18-29 (26%), but the media is now the least trusted of all civic and political institutions included in the survey.

How could this happen? If you’re reading The Washington Stand, you likely already know. Mass media, as an institution, lost Americans’ trust by behaving less like the neutral arbiters of objective information they claimed to be and more like partisan organs dedicated to getting candidates who shared their ideology elected.

In other words, they lied — or at least significantly misrepresented themselves. If the media were open about their biases and allowed consumers to reach they own conclusions, they might enjoy greater public trust than they do today.

In fact, the media’s problem with accurate reporting was “highlighted this week,” noted Family Research Council Action President Jody Hice on “Washington Watch,” in a “CBS news interview with [Vice President] Kamala Harris and … an interview with [House] Speaker [Mike] Johnson.” On one hand, CBS News faced accusations of selectively editing Harris’ answers, as well as giving her multiple chances to respond to the same question when her first attempt was unsatisfactory. On the other hand, Johnson accused CBS News of selectively cutting out the most persuasive parts of his interview.

While the media may be the worst offender, Americans’ distrust of institutions is not confined to the evening paper. “Trust in our institutions is eroding” more broadly, warned David Closson, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Biblical Worldview, “whether it’s the courts, whether it’s our school system, even the military.”

“Why is that?” Closson asked. “It’s because of decisions that our leaders have made.”

“Thinking of the military,” he continued, “why are recruitment levels so low? Well, think of the woke ideology that’s been introduced into our service branches.” The military is not supposed to be a partisan or ideological entity. Yet servicemembers were subjected to critical race theory trainings, celebration of transgenderism, and DEI performance objectives. Not only was the military drifting away from its critical mission, it was also becoming unmoored from objective reality and truth.

Or, “think about the thousands of service members that were discharged because they didn’t want to get the COVID-19 shot,” Closson added. In fact, public officials in many arenas squandered trust profligately during the COVID pandemic. “Think of all of us that were told to wear masks, and how none of that was actually based on science,” recalled Closson.

Indeed, the brazen lies and arbitrary orders issuing from public institutions during COVID created a “run” on public trust that went beyond just the issues at hand. Backed by the media and powerful government agencies, public health officials demanded that citizens comply with draconian mandates, including stay-at-home orders, mask mandates, vaccine passports, and social distancing farces. These officials traded on their scientific reputation as public health experts, when in fact few to none of the recommendations they issued were based on science.

As a result, Americans jaded by their COVID-era interactions with government are more willing to question the government on unrelated points. If public health officials were willing to lie about the efficacy of the COVID jabs, for example, then why should they be trusted on the rest of the recommended vaccine regimen? This, combined with a wide-open southern border — another example of gaslighting — has led to the resurgence of diseases once on the verge of eradication. Drug companies are now paying for advertisements that aren’t selling new products, but which are simply begging Americans not to turn their backs on longstanding vaccine recommendations. Building trust takes much longer than destroying it.

The collapse of public trust in America holds lessons for Christians to take to heart. “As Christians, we believe in an objective order, right and wrong,” concluded Closson. “And we believe in speaking the truth in love. And, too often, people in positions of power are abusing their authority, and that is eroding trust we have. And that’s not sustainable for any society in the long term.”

Three thousand years ago, David lamented that “Everyone utters lies to his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak” (Psalms 12:2). But, rather than giving in to despair, David placed his trust in the Lord. “The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times” (Psalm 12:6).

Because God speaks the truth, his children should also be known for their truthfulness. Paul describes how God has given the church pastors and teachers to “equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,” so that we may not be misled “by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Ephesians 4:12, 14-15).

The goal is unity and mutual edification (Ephesians 4:16), but the means are truth and love. Truth fosters trust, but deceit leads to destruction. This holds as true for the church as it does for the society at large. So, rather than be discouraged and disillusioned by the maelstrom of brazen lies swirling through our public discourse, Christians should consider in what ways they are walking in the truth, and how that can contribute to building up the body of Christ.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘My Grammar’s Not Always Correct’: Fact-Checking Harris and Walz’s CNN Interview

/in , , , , , , , , , , , , , /by

A full 39 days after being anointed the Democratic Party’s presumptive leader, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris sat down for her first in-depth interview. As CNN’s Dana Bash rattled off numerous flip-flops and apparent lies, Harris said her “values have not changed,” that she is “very proud” of her record on inflation and illegal immigration, and that she has no regrets over describing Joe Biden’s mental health as “strong” in late June. Meanwhile, vice presidential candidate Tim Walz blamed his misstatements about serving “in war” on poor grammar and before pivoting to an alleged “national abortion ban.”

Unlike most presidential candidates, who are elected in primaries and vetted by voters, Kamala Harris — who received the nomination through a virtual roll call 27 days ago — has yet to hold an extended in-person interview. To date, she has not held an in-depth interview or press conference on her own, opting to have Walz at her side throughout the process.

Word Salad

The interview got off to a rocky start. When asked what she would do on day one, Harris replied she would “do what we can to support and strengthen the middle class,” to “look at the aspirations, the goals, the ambitions of the American people,” and provide “a new way forward” filled with “hope and optimism.”

“So, what would you do day one?” Bash repeated.

Twice, Harris said she represents “a new way forward” from polarization “dividing our nation,” because “the last decade … I believe has been contrary to where the spirit of our country really lies.” Bash pointed out Harris has served as vice president for 40% of the last decade.

In a question about her apparently evolving views on fracking and climate change (see below), Harris said: “I believe it is very important that we take seriously what we must do to guard against what is a clear crisis in terms of the climate. And to do that, we can do what we have accomplished thus far.”

Harris also received mockery for saying, since “the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter,” the U.S. government “should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time.”

Perhaps the most memorable comments of the interview came, not from Harris, but from Walz, when he tried to explain allegations of stolen valor.

Walz Blames ‘Stolen Valor’ Claim on Poor Grammar

Tim Walz has stated he carried “weapons of war … in war,” allowed others to say he served in active combat zones during the War on Terror without correction, and claimed for two decades to have retired from the National Guard at a higher rank than he earned. Critics accuse him of stolen valor, which is viewed as perhaps the most shameful activity among veterans. The Harris-Walz campaign claimed the Minnesota governor “misspoke” in his remarks.

In his CNN interview, Walz blamed poor English skills.

“You said that you were in war,” pressed Bash. “Did you misspeak, as the campaign has said?”

“Yeah,” replied Walz. “My wife the English teacher told me my grammar’s not always correct.”

Walz taught English during a stint in the People’s Republic of China, leading to a long series of trips to the communist nation.

Walz’s explanation was “hilarious,” said former collegiate athlete Riley Gaines, scoffing at the notion that falsely “claiming you fought in war is just a silly grammar mistake.”

“I certainly own my mistakes when I make them,” claimed Walz, moments after replying he made counter-factual statements, because “I speak like” the American people.

Bash also asked about Walz’s erroneous remarks that he conceived through IVF. Walz replied his comments cut “quite a contrast [against] folks that are trying to take those rights away from us.” Ultimately, Walz refused to offer any remorse for his statements, saying, “I won’t apologize for speaking passionately, whether it’s guns in schools or protection of reproductive rights.”

Walz then pivoted to a hypothetical “abortion ban.” Most Americans, he said, are not splitting “hairs on IVF or IUI. I think what they’re cutting hairs on is an abortion ban and the ability to be able to deny families the chance to have a beautiful child.”

Donald Trump — who has repeatedly announced he opposes any abortion ban at the federal level during his second term — earlier in the day announced during a rally in Potterville, Michigan, that “under the Trump administration, your government will pay for, or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for, all costs associated with IVF treatment, fertilization for women.” During an unscripted interview, he also implied he would vote for Florida’s Amendment 4 to institute an on-demand abortion regime in Florida before his campaign released a statement walking his remarks back.

‘My Values Have Not Changed’ about Fracking, et. al.

Faced with a series reversals and flip-flops from her previous policy proposals, Harris repeated a variation of the phrase “My values have not changed” three times.

“Let’s be clear. My values have not changed” on “the Green New Deal,” which she supported as a 2020 presidential candidate and co-sponsored as a U.S. senator. “I have always believed and I have worked on it, that the climate crisis is real,” she said. She repeated the phrase on her anti-fracking stance.

Harris forcefully rejected the notion that she had changed her mind on fracking, despite recordings showing her saying there is “no question” fracking should be banned.

“No, and I made that clear on the debate stage in 2020, that I would not ban fracking,” answered Harris. “In 2020 I made very clear where I stand. We are in 2024, and I have not changed that position, nor will I going forward. I kept my word, and I will keep my word.”

Harris appears to be referring to her debate with then-Vice President Mike Pence at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on October 7, 2020. Yet she did not say she opposed a fracking ban during the debate — commenting only that Pennsylvania native Joe Biden did.

“Joe Biden will not end fracking,” said Harris in 2020. Later, she repeated, “Joe Biden will not ban fracking. That is a fact. That is a fact.”

“Nowhere in there does she make clear that she had abandoned her previous support for a fracking ban,” noted CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale about an hour after the interview. “Rather, she repeated that Joe Biden, the head of the Democratic ticket at the time, would himself not ban fracking.”

During the campaign, Harris had endorsed a fracking ban. At a 2019 town hall meeting, a participant asked Harris, “Will you commit to implementing a federal ban on fracking your first day in office, adding the United States [to] the list of countries [that] have banned this devastating practice.”

“There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking. Yes,” replied Harris.

“It makes perfect sense that at the time she was speaking on behalf of Biden, the president, not the vice president,” said Dale. “I certainly did not hear anywhere in there Kamala Harris saying she personally had abandoned her 2019 view rather she was speaking for Joe Biden.”

Did Kamala Harris Reduce Illegal Immigration?

Harris defended her record on illegal immigration, as well.

“Why did the Biden-Harris administration wait three and a half years to implement sweeping asylum restrictions?” asked Bash.

“Thee root causes work that I did as vice president, that I was asked to do by the president has actually resulted in a number of benefits,” replied Harris. “The number of immigrants coming from that region has actually reduced since we’ve began that work.”

It’s not clear that is correct. After being appointed Border Czar by Joe Biden, Harris raced to pare down the job, saying she merely examined the “root causes” of “migration” from the three countries in Central America that had historically provided the largest share of illegal immigrants aside from Mexico: the “Northern Triangle” nations of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

The number of apprehensions at the southern border fell from 684,000 in fiscal year 2021 to 447,000 in 2023. But experts say those statistics alone do not tell the full story.

The number of illegal immigrants from the Northern Triangle processed for removal under Title 8 exploded from 177,000 in fiscal year 2022 to more than 309,000 in 2023, and the Border Patrol is “on track to make about 418,600 Title 8 apprehensions by September 30,” reported the Center for Immigration Studies. At the same time, illegal entrants from the region who were denied admission at ports of entry steadily rose from about 17,000 in fiscal year 2021, to 21,000 in the following year, to about 48,000 in fiscal year 2023. “In other words, while total apprehensions FY2022-24 (projected) declined by roughly 20 percent, apprehensions under Title 8 grew by 138 percent over the same time period,” states CIS.

In raw numbers, Title 8 expulsions rose by 241,000 in just one year of the Biden-Harris administration, not including other illegal entries. Nor does this include Biden-Harris programs to expedite the legal entry of putative “refugees” from these and other countries.

There are two additional reasons to question the relevance of the statement: While most illegal immigration has come from Mexico and the Northern Triangle, “in December 2023, 54% of encounters involved citizens of countries other than these four nations,” according to the Pew Research Center. And the number of illegal immigrants has broken historic records each consecutive year since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took office.

No Regrets about Telling Americans Joe Biden Is ‘Extraordinarily Strong’

“Right after the debate, you insisted that President Biden is extraordinarily strong. Given where we are now, do you have any regrets about what you told the American people?” Bash asked.

“No, not at all,” replied Harris, reiterating, “Not at all.”

A mere 63 days earlier, Harris not only described Joe Biden as the picture of health but placed an onus on those who questioned his acuity. Moments after Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump, Harris told ABC News Biden had “a slow start, but a strong finish.”

“Joe Biden is extraordinarily strong, and that cannot be debated,” she quipped.

The legacy media have revealed it was precisely the threat of a cognitive test that helped force Biden out of the presidential race. The New York Times reported that, according to two attendees of a July 11 meeting between Biden and U.S. senators, Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) issued an ultimatum (in the Times’ words): “If Mr. Biden wanted to stay in the race after a disastrous debate performance that underscored concerns about his condition and mental acuity, he should submit to examination by two independent neurologists who were willing to report their findings at a news conference.”

Harris ‘Very Proud’ of Bidenomics

“You have been vice president for three and a half years. The steps that you’re talking about now, why haven’t you done them already?” Bash asked Harris.

“I’m very proud of the work that we have done that has brought inflation down to less than 3%,” the vice president responded.

“So, you maintain Bidenomics is a success?” asked Bash.

After rattling off a list of the administration’s putative accomplishments, Harris concluded, “I’ll say that that’s good work. There’s more to do, but that’s good work.”

Inflation for 2023 stood at 4.1%, a marked increase from the 1.2% the Biden-Harris administration inherited. Wages have barely kept pace with inflation, as groceries, gasoline, and other household staples have increased by double digits — the highest inflation level in 40 years.

Despite pressing for clear answers from the pair, many observers faulted Bash for not following up on key assertions made by both Harris and Walz, as well as her question choice. Megyn Kelly noted Bash asked “not a single Q on the Emotional Support Governor’s radical trans policies.”

CNN also appeared to make a few misstatements about the interview. Although the network prerecorded the interview, the network’s feed claimed it was aired “live.” After the interview, anchor Abby Phillip referred to the closed-doors segment as a “town hall” event.

Despite reports that CNN would not offer a transcript of the interview, CNN has issued its official transcript of the historic interview.

Kamala Harris will debate former President Donald Trump on ABC News September 10 at 9 p.m.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Voters Are Increasingly Ditching The Democratic Party For The GOP In Crucial Swing State

How Liberal Pollsters Are Recreating The 2016 Wave Of Silent Trump Voters

Tim Walz’s Political Origin Story Is Reportedly Full Of Holes

‘You’re A Huge Liar’: Bill Maher Pans Walz, Harris For ‘Insulting My Intelligence’ During CNN Interview

Video Shows Police Take Down Man Allegedly Attempting To Breach Trump Rally’s Media Area

RELATED VIDEOS:

WATCH: Kamala Harris vows to create a ‘pathway to citizenship’ for illegal aliens

WOW! Kalamity Kamala actually speaks the truth about the failed American economy

Tim Walz thanks Nancy Pelosi 2007 when she said ‘we appreciate his service on the battlefield’

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Expert: Biden-Harris Admin’s Weakness Has Compounded Israel-Hezbollah Crisis

/in , , , , , , , , /by

As the growing conflict between Israel and the Lebanon-based Islamist terrorist group Hezbollah reached an uneasy calm Sunday morning following a ferocious exchange of missile fire, a military expert is warning that the threat of a broader war breaking out at Israel’s northern border is due to the pattern of weakness shown by the Biden-Harris administration and the United Nations.

The looming danger of a full-blown war breaking out between Israel and Hezbollah — with Iran continuing its war drum beat — has been hanging over the Jewish state for weeks since senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr was killed in Beirut by an Israeli airstrike in July. On Sunday, around 100 Israeli warplanes struck targets in southern Lebanon in an attempt to minimize an impending Hezbollah attack. The terrorist group was reportedly still able to launch “hundreds of rockets and drones aimed at military bases and missile defense positions” in northern Israel. One Israeli soldier and three Hezbollah terrorists were killed in the exchange. An Israeli military spokesman stated that “very little damage” had occurred within Israel as a result of the Hezbollah attack.

It remains unclear if Sunday’s hostilities will lead to Israel being pulled into a full-scale war along its northern border in addition to its ongoing war in Gaza against Hamas. Since October 8 of last year, when Hezbollah began its campaign of rocket fire into Israel following Hamas’s October 7 surprise attack, 26 Israeli civilians and 23 soldiers have been killed in northern Israel, with responding Israeli airstrikes killing around 400 Hezbollah terrorists and approximately 100 civilians.

Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas), who served with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during his over 25 years in the U.S. Army before retiring as a lieutenant colonel, joined Monday’s “Washington Watch” to unpack the root causes of the ongoing conflict.

“What I see strategically happening [is that] Israel [is] deterring a major response both from Hezbollah and Iran,” he observed. “You’ll notice that Iran has not launched their response as well. So I believe that Israel has actually started their strategic surgical strike campaign against Hezbollah. They’re going after weapons systems. They’re going after the leaders. They’re going after the critical supplies. So I believe this is a long-term campaign that they are running with these surgical strikes — not all at once — timed against threats.”

Self, who deployed to Grenada, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Qatar as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, went on to contend that the weakness shown by the Biden-Harris administration, as well as the incompetence of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), has compounded the conflict.

“I blame a lot of this on the weakness of the Biden administration,” he underscored. “Why do we have a third of our Navy in the Middle East focused on Israel and Gaza and Hezbollah? It’s because the weakness of the Biden administration caused this. And so we’ve pulled naval assets out of the Pacific where our primary adversary is — China. So this is a disaster all the way around in the making. I hope that we can settle this fast. We can get Hezbollah to move north of the Litani River, which is where UNIFIL is supposed to keep them. Once again, we’re seeing the U.N. fail in their mission, just like they did in Gaza. UNIFIL is not keeping Hezbollah north of the Litani River to give that buffer zone to Israel. We need to establish that line at the Litani River. We need to use our assets to back up Israel and allow Israel to defend itself.”

Self concluded by arguing that a Harris-Walz administration would likely continue a hands-off approach to Iran, which launched an unprecedented missile and drone attack against the Jewish state in April and is the primary financial backer of the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups.

“The Biden-Harris administration has shown that it leans toward Iran,” he insisted. “It has coddled them, just like the Obama administration has given them billions of dollars. We don’t enforce the sanctions on their oil. We coddle Iran under the current administration. I have no doubt that the Harris administration, should it happen … will do that in spades. They will double down on that, because we have two truly committed socialist communists on the Democratic ticket today. Make no mistake about it. I take Harris at her word. I take Waltz at his word. They for years have established their bona fides, their credentials in socialist communist policies.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLES:

IDF’s Preemptive Strike a Complete Success

Extreme Rhetoric in New York Mosques as Imams Call for Destruction of Israel, Praise Hamas

Islamic scholar: Oct. 7 massacre ‘transformed our history,’ ‘children should be raised on love of jihad’

The IDF’s Preemptive Strike and Its Possible Effect on the Gaza Negotiations

IDF rescues Bedouin Arab Israeli taken hostage by Hamas after finding him alone in Gaza tunnel

Israel: Muslim doctor joins Islamic State after Oct. 7, found with instructions on preparing explosives and poisons

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Trump Had a Plan for Afghanistan. Biden-Harris ‘Blew It Up’: Congressman

/in , , , , , , /by

As the Taliban paraded captured U.S. military equipment through the streets of its capital city on the third anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, a congressman had a horrifying revelation. “I saw some of the vehicles that were built in my district being paraded across that field today,” Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) told “Washington Watch” last Thursday.

Although most Americans supported the cessation of the 20-year war in Afghanistan, the Biden-Harris administration’s execution resulted in the deaths of 13 U.S. soldiers during a suicide bombing at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul and left an unknown number of American civilians stranded behind enemy lines.

The Biden-Harris administration responded by saying it had executed a plan originally negotiated by President Donald Trump — but that’s a half-truth, Walberg, a former pastor, told his former congressional colleague Jody Hice, who guest hosted the program. “President Trump had planned for it, had negotiated the means by which the Taliban would respect our withdrawal,” including a provision “that we would keep forces there, that we would hold the airfield and that we would have eyes on the ground still in that region.”

“That all changed with the election of the present president, who immediately after being sworn into office, showed a weakness and it blew up full tilt during the Afghan withdrawal,” Walberg explained.

Kamala Harris praised President Joe Biden’s reaction to the military deaths at the time, saying he had “shown great emotion in expressing sadness about some of the images we have seen.” Although President Biden attended the dignified transfer of the troops, cameras caught him looking at his watch. The White House spin room later claimed Biden was glancing at a rosary he wears on his wrist.

As Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris seeks to reinvent herself, she will not be able to distance herself from that debacle. Harris publicly stated she was “the last person in the room” with Joe Biden when he formulated his disastrous withdrawal plans. “She was part of all the major decisions, they say. And there she was supporting this decision,” said Hice, who served as a congressman from Georgia.

The Biden-Harris administration has further decimated the U.S. military by instituting woke policies that saw branches of service repeatedly miss their recruitment goals, even after those goals were lowered.

“Kamala Harris, whom the media were deriding just three weeks ago, is beginning this honeymoon with the potential of becoming commander-in-chief of a weakened force — not because of our troops, but because of their leadership,” said Walberg. “What that says to Hamas is, why should they negotiate? What that says to Iran is, why should they stop their nuclear development?”

“We are the ‘big Satan’ in the eyes of the radical Muslims. And that begins with Iran, who indeed will foster what goes on with the Taliban and others against the United States,” he said.

Walberg said the final shape of U.S. policies, foreign or domestic, may have little to do with either Biden or Harris, implying it would endure throughout Democratic administrations. “I don’t believe that she or President Joe Biden were running this country or have been running this country. There’s a cabal behind them with an initiative to change this country from the inside out. And that also responds to the whole globalist desire.”

Walberg said plans to submerge the United States into a global order, erasing centuries of American exceptionalism, “will not work” and will not maintain global stability. “America has to be there at the top of the heap. We’re the only nation that has the power and the potential and the moral clarity — if we use it to define what takes place in the world.”

America must jettison its policy of seeking to “build nations, but rather demonstrate what a true constitutional democracy and freedom is all about,” he insisted.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Ask Walz for a Copy of His NGB Form 22

/in , , , , , /by

There’s a lot of controversy around Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s (D) claims about his service with the Nebraska and Minnesota Army National Guard. Evidently, according to some of those who served with him, his claims about his rank and experience are quite different from what they recall about his service. Those questions can be resolved with a peek at his NGB Form 22, National Guard Report of Separation and Record of Service.

NGB Form 22 must be signed by the servicemember when he/she is discharged. By signing the document, the retiring soldier acknowledges his/her retirement rank, military education, places of service, and any decorations. A copy of Walz’s NGB Form 22 should be available by contacting the National Guard Adjutant’s office for Minnesota.

Evidently, based on press statements, Republican vice presidential candidate and Senator J.D. Vance (Ohio) alleges that Walz is guilty of “stolen valor.” That’s a serious allegation with legal ramifications, because it’s against federal law to lie about military service with the intent to defraud people.

There are a couple issues here. Walz allegedly has claimed to be a retired command sergeant major and that he carried a gun “in war.” However, the Harris-Walz campaign pushed back stating “the Governor carried, fired and trained others to use weapons of war innumerable times.” That statement sidesteps the issue.

By 2005, Walz had 24 years of service with the Army National Guard, at which time his unit was tapped to deploy to Iraq. For a number of reasons given — being a critic of the Bush administration’s Iraq war, a young daughter at home, and his desire to run for public office — Walz decided to retire rather than deploy to combat with his unit.

Senator Vance takes issue with Walz’s retirement decision. “I think it’s shameful to prepare [a] unit to go to Iraq to make a promise that you’re going to follow through and then to drop out right before you actually have to go. I also think it’s dishonest,” the senator said.

In my generation, future political leaders like Bill Clinton evaded going to war through a variety of draft deferments and by reneging on his commitment to join the ROTC. Others joined the National Guard to avoid being drafted; that was often the preferred alternative to deserting the country, which was an out for hundreds of thousands of young men.

Of course, Walz won’t be the first politician to misrepresent his military service. Recall that Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal “made a handful of false and misleading statements about having served in Vietnam during the period of American involvement in the war there.”

Evidently, Walz joined the National Guard to earn money for the G.I. Bill so that he could attend college. That’s been a common practice for many, and it should be encouraged — especially today when recruitment levels are in the toilet.

What is not acceptable is making claims about your rank and type of service. That is part of the federal record vis-à-vis NGB Form 22. That official form, which was signed by Walz before leaving service, will lay to rest his retired rank, any claimed awards, his military education and where he served — in combat or not.

Has the governor been dishonest about his service, as Vance claims? Should he have deployed to Iraq with his unit rather than retire? The answer to the first question is a matter of public record. The second question goes to Walz’s loyalty to the soldiers he led and ultimately to the voters this fall.

We ought to thank those who volunteer to serve in the armed forces. However, we should not overlook false claims about service and what some contend is the abandonment of a unit heading to war. Ultimately, the American voters will have to decide whether Governor Walz has the character to become a leader that is one heartbeat away from serving as the commander-in-chief of America’s armed forces.

AUTHOR

Bob Maginnis

Bob Maginnis is a retired U.S. Army officer and the author of 11 books. He serves as Family Research Council’s senior fellow for National Security.

RELATED VIDEOS:

U.S. Marine combat veteran J.D. Vance speaks out about ‘what really bothers him about Tim Walz’

Walz tells a gold-star family during hearing on PTSD that he was deployed to Afghanistan in 2004

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

U.S. at Second-Highest Threat Level for Terrorist Attack: Expert

/in , , , , , , /by

American soldiers abroad and U.S. citizens at home face perilously high odds of suffering a terrorist attack caused by the Biden administration’s policies, a national security expert has revealed. In his estimation, the American homeland stands at the second-highest level of terrorist alert.

His estimation comes days after U.S. European Command (EUCOM), which oversees 83,000 U.S. soldiers across the continent, raised the threat of a terrorist attack over the next week to “Force Protection Charlie,” the second-highest level.

“There are a host of issues that might be at play,” said retired Lt. Col. Bob Maginnis on “Washington Watch” Monday. “Certainly, the Olympics come to mind,” as they start later this month, as well as possible Russian activity in response to U.S. sponsorship of Ukraine. On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the Biden administration would give an additional $2.3 billion in taxpayer funding to Ukraine. That comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has asked President Biden for permission to use U.S.-donated Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles to strike deep into the interior of Russia, significantly widening the war.

But, Maginnis warned, the potential to suffer from some form of terrorist attack is far from confined to Americans overseas — and the primary danger comes from uncontrolled illegal immigration.

“Where would you suspect we are right here in the homeland?” asked guest host and former Congressman Jody Hice.

“Probably Charlie trending to Delta,” replied Maginnis.

The force protection levels, from lowest to highest, are: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta.

“We are at a very heightened level, even though it’s not acknowledged by Homeland Security,” said Maginnis, senior fellow for National Security at Family Research Council and author of the book “Kings of the East: China’s Plan to Eliminate America and Impose a Communist World Order.”

“The risk is high,” he said.

“The southern border has been wide open for a long time. Millions of people have come in” during the Biden administration — an estimated 10 million illegal border crossings, not including unknown gotaways. That includes “many thousands of military-age communist Chinese, many from the Middle East, many from northern Africa — where we don’t have any real friends — and then, of course an odd lot from Eastern Europe that we could very well have bad characters in sleeper cells posted around this country near our critical infrastructure.”

“As we saw on September 11, 2001, it only takes 19 bad dudes to disrupt the entire United States,” said Maginnis.

Potential terrorists continue to swarm over the southern border, a problem that has intensified with each passing month of the Biden administration. Last month, ICE agents arrested eight illegal immigrants from Tajikistan with ties to ISIS in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and New York City. At least two of the potential terrorists had background checks conducted at the southern border by agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), but nothing alerted CBP to the men’s nefarious connections — so they were released into the interior of the United States, in accordance with the Biden administration’s standard operating procedure. Another of the men used the CBP One App, created by the Biden administration to expedite the importation of illegal aliens into the U.S., to schedule a smooth entry into the U.S.

“The arrest of eight men affiliated with ISIS in the interior of the United States is enough proof to show that terrorist organizations are, in fact, exploiting our border to possibly carry out an attack on American soil,” wrote a group of Republican congressmen led by House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green (R-Tenn.) to the now-impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray. “Unfortunately, the unacceptable security failures that have allowed individuals with terrorist ties to enter the United States through the Southwest [b]order have become an alarming pattern under this administration.” In addition to the eight Tajikis:

  • An ISIS-affiliated human smuggling ring reportedly brought 400 illegal immigrants into the United States. Only 150 had been arrested as of last week. The whereabouts of 50 of them remained unknown.
  • 48-year-old Mohammad Kharwin, a native of Afghanistan and a suspected member of the terrorist group Hezb-e-Islami (HIG), illegally entered the United States last March 10 near San Ysidro, California. Although he was on the U.S. terrorist watchlist, the information reportedly did not show up on his background check, so agents released him two days later, only to track him down and take him into custody this February.
  • A 2022 George Washington University report on Hezbollah activity inside the United States identified 128 individuals carrying out Hezbollah -related illegal activity in Michigan (55 cases), California (19 cases), North Carolina (16 cases), and New York (15 cases). Of those, 19 offered operational support for Hezbollah, “including as human smugglers, weapons procurers, pre-operational surveillance, and travelers who sought to join the group.”
  • U.S. Customs and Border Protection has encountered 1,703 people on the U.S. terrorist watchlist since the beginning of the 2021 fiscal year (which began in October 2020): 173 in 2021, 478 in 2022, 736 in 2023, and 316 people so far this fiscal year.
  • Robert Lee, CEO of the energy cybersecurity company Dragos, testified before the Senate last March that it is “a very reasonable assumption” to believe Chinese and Russian sleeper cells have already penetrated the U.S. energy grid in preparation for a future attack. “If they’re not already in key parts of it, I don’t think they’re doing the job very well,” said Lee.

The Biden administration’s soft-on-crime “prioritization of catch, process, and release” at the southern border “presents a grave danger to national security,” the congressmen wrote.

Sleeper cells, which may lay dormant for months or years before engaging in deadly activity, have proven their lethality in every corner of the globe. Last week, a Russian official revealed that “sleeper cells” had carried out the June 23 Islamist terrorist attack on churches and synagogues in Dagestan, which left 22 people dead, including 66-year-old priest Fr. Nikolai Kotelnikov. The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church condemned the attacks as having “diabolic” origins.

“This is a dangerous time,” Maginnis told Hice.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Abortion Extremism, Warfare, and More: Fact-Checking the First 2024 Presidential Debate

/in , , , , , , , , /by

Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump faced off in Atlanta on Thursday night before an empty arena and two CNN moderators for what was billed as the first presidential debate of 2024. While a lackluster performance by Biden dominated headlines and sent Democrats’ tongues wagging about possibly replacing him at the head of the ticket, Biden embraced abortion-on-demand without limit and made a number of factually erroneous statements.

Roe v. Wade allows late-term abortion

The debate turned to abortion early, as CNN’s Dana Bash asked Biden, “Do you support any legal limits on how late a woman should be able to terminate a pregnancy?”

“I support Roe v. Wade, which had three trimesters,” said Biden. He then seemed to say Roe v. Wade allowed the state to protect life in the third trimester, without endorsing any specific pro-life protection.

“Under Roe v. Wade, you have late-term abortion,” retorted President Trump. “We don’t think that’s a good thing. We think it’s a radical thing. We think the Democrats are the radicals, not the Republicans.”

“They’re radical, because they will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth,” said Trump. Turning to Biden, he said, “He’s willing to, as we say, rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month and kill the baby,” returning to a memorable line from his 2016 debate with Hillary Clinton.

“You’re lying,” insisted Biden, who slurred his words badly all night. “Roe v. Wade does not provide for that. That’s not the circumstance. Only woman’s life is in danger. She’s going to die. That’s the only circumstance which that can happen. But we are not for late-term abortion, period — period, period.”

However, Roe v. Wade merely allowed states to begin protecting life after the point of viability — originally set at 28 weeks, well into the third trimester. Its companion case — Doe v. Bolton, which was decided the same day — allowed abortion to protect the “health of the mother.” This included mental and emotional health, and sometimes financial circumstances, in effect allowing third-trimester abortions at any time.

Biden has endorsed the Women’s Health Protection Act, which goes far beyond the terms of Roe to strike down nearly every state and local pro-life law and ordinance. The Democratic Party platform endorses taxpayer-funded abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy.

Biden went on to defend the intellectual integrity of Roe v. Wade, which held that abortion, while not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, was protected by the emanation of a penumbra thereof. “The vast majority of constitutional scholars supported Roe,” said Biden. “This idea that they were all against it is just ridiculous.”

In fact, far-left Ruth Bader Ginsburg described Roe as “heavy-handed judicial intervention.” A former clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the Roe decision, said, “Roe borders on the indefensible,” because “it has little connection to the constitutional right it purportedly interpreted. A constitutional right to privacy broad enough to include abortion has no meaningful foundation in constitutional text, history, or precedent.”

A pandemic of women being raped by their sisters?

In the same exchange, Biden said America needs abortion-on-demand, because “there’s a lot of young women who are being raped by their in-laws, by their spouses, brothers and sisters.” He did not explain how a woman’s sister could impregnate her. Rape accounts for approximately 1% of all abortions, with incest another 1%. While the law rightly punishes rape harshly, no legal code in the world considered being conceived by rape a capital crime for which the baby deserves the death penalty.

Ronald Reagan wanted abortion returned to the states?

Donald Trump also muddied the waters a bit while boasting of his role in returning the issue of abortion to the democratic process after 50 years of judicial diktats. “I put three great Supreme Court justices on the court, and they happened to vote in favor of killing Roe v. Wade and moving it back to the states,” he said of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, all of whom ruled for the 2022 Dobbs decision. Yet Trump seemed to see state sovereignty over the issue as the primary focus of the pro-life movement.

“Ronald Reagan wanted it brought back” to the states, said Trump. In fact, President Reagan supported federal legislation to protect life incrementally, as well as a Human Life Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protecting all children from abortion. (Then-Senator Joe Biden voted in favor of the abortion-abolishing constitutional amendment in 1982.)

Trump also seemingly endorsed the Supreme Court’s recent decision not to challenge the FDA’s rushed and irregular approval of the abortion drug, mifepristone. “The Supreme Court just approved the abortion pill, and I agree with their decision to have done that, and I will not block it,” he said of FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. Abortion pills account for approximately two-thirds of all abortions nationwide, and climbing.

Trump added that he supported “the exceptions” to allow abortion in the cases of rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother. “Some people don’t,” Trump acknowledged. “Follow your heart.”

Inflation: Biden says he’s worried about the cost of groceries, gasoline, and housing

Biden spoke of his brief few years as a child in Scranton, Pennsylvania. “I come of household where the kitchen table — if things weren’t able to be met during the month, was a problem. Price of eggs, the price of gas, the price of housing, the price of a whole range of things,” he said in a disjointed speaking style that dominated the evening. During Biden’s presidency, groceries have risen 26%, eggs 85%, gasoline 46%, housing approximately 19%. Overall inflation is up approximately 20% since Biden took office.

When asked how he would respond to black Americans who do not feel they have gotten ahead fast enough, Biden replied, “I don’t blame them for being disappointed. Inflation is still hurting them badly.”

Biden accepted no blame for the situation, stating, “The combination of what I was left with and corporate greed are the reason why we’re in this problem right now.” Critics accurately predicted Biden’s extra COVID-19 stimulus when the economy was already rebounding, coupled with his $800 billion Inflation Reduction Act, would trigger inflation. Biden seemingly contracted himself later, acknowledging, “There was no inflation when I became president. You know why? The economy was flat on its back.”

Biden claimed he inherited “15% unemployment.” The unemployment rate in January 2021 was 6.3%.

Trump added Biden’s “big kill” on black economic fortunes is the open border. “They’re taking black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs,” he said.

Trump increased taxes?

“This guy has increased your taxes.” Yet in the opening of the debate, Biden admitted, under President Trump, “we had the largest tax cut in American history, $2 trillion,” referring to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which Trump wants to extend. “Now you want a new tax cut of $5 trillion over the next 10 years, which is going to fundamentally bankrupt the country,” Biden said.

“I said, nobody even making under $400,000 had a single penny increasing their taxes and it will not. And if I’m reelected, that’ll be the case again.” President Biden endorsed several budget proposals that would have raised taxes on those making less than $400,000, including increasing fees for gun registration and cigarette taxes, or reinstating Obamacare’s $695 penalty.

No U.S. soldiers died under Biden?

Joe Biden claimed the “truth is, I’m the only president this century, that doesn’t have any, this decade, that doesn’t have any troops dying anywhere in the world, like he did.” In reality, 13 U.S. soldiers died during a suicide bombing at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul after Biden ordered the withdrawal of U.S. soldiers from the war-torn nation. The withdrawal left sophisticated military equipment, and U.S. citizens, behind enemy lines. Biden attended the dignified transfer of the troops, where cameras caught him looking at his watch. In January, another three U.S. servicemen died in Jordan by a drone strike the administration pinned on an Iranian-backed militia.

Trump called Biden’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan “the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country.”

Trump wants to exit NATO?

“This a guy who wants to get out of NATO,” stated Biden. President Trump has never talked about exiting NATO, although he told foreign leaders, if they fail to meet their defense obligations, he would reconsider sending U.S. troops to their defense as required by Article 5.

Climate change “the only existential threat”

“The only existential threat to humanity is climate change,” said Biden. Yet decades of environmental warnings about impending global catastrophes have failed spectacularly. Trump said the real challenge to global stability is that the Biden administration has kicked off “wars that will never end,” such as Biden’s breaking up peace talks between Ukraine and Russia. “He will drive us into World War III, and we’re closer to World War III than anybody can imagine.”

Immigration: No terrorists crossed the border under Biden?

Biden seemingly denied the possibility of terrorists entering the open southern, and increasingly porous northern, borders, although his administration has documented monthly occurrences. “The only terrorist who has done anything crossing the border is one who came along and killed three under his administration, killed — an al-Qaeda person in his administration, killed,” said Biden. He later backtracked, saying, “I’m not saying no terrorist ever got through.”

The Biden administration’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded encountering 316 people who are on the terror watchlist since last October, as well as 736 in 2023, 478 in 2022, and 173 in 2021.

“We had the safest border in history,” said Trump. “Now we have the worst border in history.”

An additional debate is scheduled for the fall, but after Biden’s meandering statements, it is unclear whether such a debate will take place — and, in a growing number of Democrats’ minds, whether he will be their nominee.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLES:

ISIS-Linked Individuals Stream over Biden’s Border, with Dozens Unaccounted for

DNC Funding Lawfare Campaign against Trump, FEC Filings Reveal

‘Not Going to Put Up with Pro-Abortion Activists’: GOP Primaries Show Voters Want Pro-Life Values

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Military Funding Bill Passes House, Includes Conservative Priorities

/in , , , , , , , , , /by

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 217-199 Friday, largely along party lines. Conservatives attached a number of amendments, which the mainstream media described as “culture war amendments,” designed to keep social issues out of the military.

The NDAA is an annual, must-pass bill that authorizes appropriations for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and sets DOD policies.

Due to its must-pass, pro-military nature, progressives in Congress have used the NDAA to advance their policy agenda by attaching left-wing riders to a bill they know many Republicans will support. Since retaking control of the House of Representatives, where all such spending bills must originate, Republicans have sought to reverse the progressive Left’s social engineering of the U.S. military by disentangling it from abortion, LGBT ideology, and DEI practices.

Although most Republicans voted for the fiscal year (FY) 2025 NDAA and most Democrats voted against it, due to the conservative-leaning policies included, a handful of members did cross the aisle. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) voted against the NDAA. Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Don Davis (D-N.C.), Jared Golden (D-Maine), Vincente Gonzalez (D-Texas), Mary Peltota (D-Alaska), and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) voted for the bill.

Before the bill’s final passage, the NDAA went through the customary amend-a-thon. Members of Congress submitted hundreds of amendments, and they voted on the amendments ruled in order on Thursday. Highlights of those amendments are divided into categories below:

Abortion:

  • Amendment #55, proposed by Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas), prohibits the Secretary of Defense from paying for or reimbursing expenses relating to abortion services. The House adopted it 214-206, with most Republicans and one Democrat (Cuellar) voting “yes” and most Democrats and two Republicans (Reps. John Duarte (Calif.) and Brian Fitzpatrick, Pa.) voting “no.”

Religious Liberty:

  • Amendment #341, proposed by Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas), requires the Secretary of Defense to review and repair the personnel records of military chaplains who suffered forced separation, downgraded performance reports, denials of promotion, schooling, training, or assignment, or any other adverse personnel actions as retaliation for seeking a Religious Accommodation Request (RAR) to the COVID-19 vaccination mandate. The House adopted this amendment “en bloc” (with other amendments considered uncontroversial), which means there was no recorded vote.

LGBT Ideology:

  • Amendment #52, proposed by Rosendale, prohibits the provision of gender transition procedures, including surgery or wrong-sex hormones, through TRICARE and the Department of Defense. The U.S. House adopted it 213-206, with most of the Republicans and one Democrat (Cuellar) voting “yes” and most of the Democrats and one Republican (Rep. Tony Gonzales, Texas) voting “no.”
  • Amendment #53, proposed by Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), prohibits the provision of gender transition procedures, including surgery or wrong-sex hormones, through the Exceptional Family Medical Program. The House adopted it 218-205, with most Republicans and one Democrat (Cuellar) voting “yes” and most Democrats and one Republican (Rep. Neal Dunn, Fla.) voting “no.”
  • Amendment #46, proposed by Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.), prohibits DoD’s military base schools, DODEA, from purchasing, displaying, or maintaining material that promotes radical gender ideology or pornographic content. The House adopted it 221-202, with all Republicans and three Democrats (Cuellar, Davis, and Gonzalez) voting “yes” and most Democrats voting “no.”
  • Amendment #54, proposed by Reps. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.) and Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), prohibits drag shows, drag queen story hours, and similar events. The House adopted it by voice vote, which means the votes of individual members were not recorded.

DEI:

  • Amendment #43, proposed by Reps. Clay Higgins (R-La.), Chip Roy (R-Texas), and Duncan, eliminates the position of Chief Diversity Officer of the Department of Defense and prohibits the establishment of any substantially similar position. The House adopted it 214-210, with most Republicans voting “yes,” while all Democrats and four Republicans (Reps. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Ore.), Fitzpatrick, Thomas Kean (N.J.), and Mike Turner (Ohio)) voting “no.”

“Misinformation”:

  • Amendment #45, proposed by Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas), prohibits funding of companies whose operations, activities, or products, function to demonetize or rate the credibility of a domestic entity (including news and information outlets) based on lawful speech of such domestic entity under the stated function of “fact-checking” misinformation, disinformation, or mal-information. The House adopted it 218-206 with all Republicans voting “yes” and all Democrats voting “no.”

Israel:

  • Amendment #5, proposed by Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), prohibits U.S. funds from building or rebuilding in the Gaza Strip. The House adopted the amendment by voice vote.

These are the nine amendments tracked by Family Research Council Action, on the organization’s core issues of life, religious liberty, and sexuality, as well as other important topics, such as opposing the DEI worldview, protecting free speech, and supporting the nation of Israel. All nine amendments tracked by FRC Action were passed, making the NDAA for FY 2025 a victory for Bible-believing conservatives.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Christian Court Victory, Biden Abandons Americans, and More: 5 Stories You Missed

/in , , , , , , , , /by

The news this week focused on a glut of truly momentous stories: President Donald Trump’s norms-breaking conviction, Joe Biden’s loophole-ridden executive actions at the border, and Biden’s attempt to draft D-Day veterans into his war to maintain the White House. But a week of consequential news often drowns out genuinely significant developments, as well.

This week, that included a transgender theorist’s admission that her work does target children, the unreported facts behind this week’s “strong” jobs report, the U.S. government’s war against a Christian business, a touching act of charity as a wounded politician publicly forgives his would-be assassin, and Joe Biden’s abandonment of Americans in yet another theater of combat.

1. A Christian business wins a small tag-of-war with the Biden administration.

As President Joe Biden used the venerable surviving veterans of D-Day as a backdrop for a domestic-themed speech, Christian businesses fought his administration’s attempts to deny the unalienable constitutional rights those veterans fought to preserve.

Shields of Strength began producing replicas of Army, Air Force, and Marines dog tags, inscribed with a Bible verse, in 2012. Their work brought comfort and solace to those killed in America’s decades-long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as Family Research Council President Tony Perkins described in 2020:

“Her son, Sgt. Cole Wixom, was killed on duty — almost one year ago today. His body was flown home to Michigan a week later, but along the way, his mom says, someone gave the soldier accompanying his remains a dog tag with a Bible verse on it. In a letter, [Wixom’s mother, Robyn] tells Kenny Vaughan, the founder of Shields of Strength, that she’s ‘worn it ever since, along with the dog tag that was attached to his coffin. I can barely see the writing anymore. It’s tarnished, but I know what it says. It says, “I will be strong and courageous. I will not be afraid. I will not be discouraged.” You have no idea,’ the grieving mom said, ‘what this little piece of metal has meant to me…’”

Comforting the grieving proved too great an offense for the atheist activists at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which claimed the dog tags “poison[ed] the constitutionally mandated separation of Church and State.” In 2019, the Army withdrew its permission for the Christian company to recreate the faith-themed dog tags. They were followed by the Marines. Soon, the Department of Defense accused the company of trademark infringement.

This week, the Christian business cut a small hole through the enemy’s lines. With the help of First Liberty Institute, the business argued the Pentagon’s actions violated the freedom of speech rights recognized by the First Amendment. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, allowed the company’s First Amendment case to proceed.

It’s a small victory, but true warriors know: Small victories lead to great triumphs. Yet the company should not have to prevail in court: The federal government can reverse its fear-filled attempt to placate secular maximalists and rescind its objections. The Biden administration should end its war against Christian retailers as precipitously as it did its war against Afghan terrorists.

2. Transgender theorist: Actually, we do groom children.

This Tuesday, during a little-viewed presentation, two largely obscure academics blurted out one of the most noteworthy if inadvertent confessions in the history of the transgender movement.

The moment came during an exchange between queer theorists Judith Butler of Berkeley and Judith “Jack” Halberstam of Columbia. Halberstam opened their conversation, hosted by Pioneer Works and Dia Art Foundation, by condemning a “strange set of accusations that people who believe in [extreme] gender [ideology] are trying to destroy the family [or] they are pedophiles themselves.”

Halberstam and Butler then proceeded to admit, in essence, many of their foes’ accusations are true.

“I was identified as representing gender ideology and a threat to children. My work would indoctrinate them. Or my work would license pedophilia. Or my work and the work of gender more broadly would teach them how to become homosexual or teach them they must become homosexual,” groused Butler.

“Which is kinda true,” replied Halberstam, who giggled as Butler cracked a smile. “Kinda worked, yeah!”

Butler confessed, “Of course, we know Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick said, ‘Yes, we do teach that!’ And that is one answer. If that is your desire, and you’re looking for ways to live according to that desire, come along, and we’ll make that easier for you.”

She proceeded to deny that, “as a group, people who advocate policy or teaching Gender Studies are in favor of indoctrination or unwanted seduction. In fact, we spend most of our time criticizing both.”

Charges that LGBTQ theory will erode basic societal guards against pedophilia are “a projection of ‘the Church’” trying to find evidence of its own crimes in those they [sic] wish to persecute.”

“This is how priests confess,” Butler averred.

In reality, Butler has personally written that it may “be necessary to rethink the prohibition on incest,” since “incest [is] necessarily traumatic.” Moreover, laws banning incest make it more difficult to realize “lesbian and gay forms of parenting.” As such, laws against incest may become the “instrument of a violation.” In her 2004 book “Undoing Gender,” Butler wrote:

“I do think that there are probably forms of incest that are not necessarily traumatic or which gain their traumatic character by virtue of the consciousness of social shame that they produce. … One of the symbolic consequences of the law [against incest] so formulated is precisely the derealization of lesbian and gay forms of parenting, single-mother households, blended family arrangements in which there may be more than one mother or father … It is important to note that not all forms of incest are necessarily traumatic … It might, then, be necessary to rethink the prohibition on incest as that which sometimes protects against a violation, and sometimes becomes the very instrument of a violation” (pp. 157-160).

Examples of LGBTQ literature glorifying adult-child sexual relations became so numerous that scholar Mary Eberstadt categorized them in a 1996 article titled “Pedophilia Chic.” Among them is Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues,” possibly the play that has enjoyed the single greatest amount of adulation from Gender Studies departments. In its original form, Ensler’s play featured a positive portrayal of a 24-year-old woman raping a 13-year-old girl. (The child’s age was subsequently raised to the still-illegal age of 16.) Similarly positive portrayals of pedophilia occur in Jonathan Evison’s “Lawn Boy,” a book in many school libraries, which contains a boy fondly reminiscing about performing fellatio on a grown man.

Butler’s hero, Gayle Rubin, defended child pornography and “boylovers” in her 1984 essay, “Thinking Sex,” in which Rubin wrote, “The laws produced by the child porn panic are ill-conceived and misdirected.” For example, “some child pornography laws prohibit even the private possession of any sexual material involving minors.”

Rubin’s inverted moral compass depicted police as viciously devouring adult men who happen to have sex with underage boys:

“Like communists and homosexuals in the 1950s, boylovers are so stigmatized that it is difficult to find defenders for their civil liberties, let alone for their erotic orientation. Consequently, the police have feasted on them.”

Critiquing laws that prevent adults from sexually exploiting minors’ vulnerable mental state, Rubin believed children could be sexualized “in a caring and responsible manner”:

“The law is especially ferocious in maintaining the boundary between childhood ‘innocence’ and ‘adult’ sexuality. Rather than recognizing the sexuality of the young, and attempting to provide for it in a caring and responsible manner, our culture denies and punishes erotic interest and activity by anyone under the local age of consent. The amount of law devoted to protecting young people from premature exposure to sexuality is breath-taking.”

Rubin’s ideology would infect queer theory root-and-branch. Ten years after these words were written, Judith Butler interviewed Gayle Rubin, telling Rubin, “[Y]ou set the methodology for feminist theory, then the methodology for lesbian and gay studies.”

3. About that ‘strong’ jobs report ….

President Joe Biden continues to build a strong economy for illegal aliens and their employers.

The legacy media described the May 2024 jobs report as “strong,” a “blowout,” and “much-better-than-expected.” And Biden dubbed it evidence of “the great American comeback.” Those evaluations seem difficult to sustain, since the report actually shows:

  • 299,000 fewer native-born Americans held a job this year compared to last May.
  • 637,000 more foreign-born immigrants (legal or illegal) held a job during the same time period.
  • Bidenomics destroyed 625,000 full-time jobs since April — or 1.16 million year-over-year.
  • The Biden economy produced 286,000 more part-time jobs in one month — or 1.51 million since last May.
  • Consequently, 16,000 more people worked two or more jobs in May than in April — 629,000 more than last May.

Particularly, the benefits reaped by non-citizens does not represent a new trend: U.S. citizens hold fewer jobs today than before the pandemic, while foreign-born workers hold significantly more. “[A]ll post-pandemic job growth, coinciding with the millions of illegal aliens allowed into the country by the Biden administration, has gone to foreign-born workers,” notes the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

A “great American comeback” is precisely what unemployed and under-employed Americans need most.

4. A president forgives his would-be assassin.

One of the unreported stories this week involves a world leader who exercised the Christian virtue of forgiveness on an incalculable scale. On May 15, a gunman shot Robert Fico, president of Slovakia, four times in a failed assassination attempt. On Wednesday, Fico responded.

“It’s time for me to make the first move. And that is forgiveness,” said the wounded president during a 14-minute-long video posted on Facebook. “I feel no hatred towards the stranger who shot me. I will not take any legal action against him, nor will I seek damages compensation.”

“I forgive him,” said Fico. “Let him sort out what he did and why he did it in his own head.”

Such effusive displays of forgiveness have become exceedingly rare in our secularizing world. Fico joins a distinguished list of public officials who let their love of neighbor overcome an attempt on their lives, including:

  • Pope John Paul II, who met his would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, in prison, holding his hand.
  • President Ronald Reagan, whom son Michael revealed wanted to meet John Hinckley Jr. in prison in 1981. The former president would publicly express his forgiveness in 1990, saying, “I added him to my prayers that, well, if I wanted healing for myself and maybe he should have some healing for himself.”
  • Former Alabama Governor George Wallace, who wrote a touching letter to Arthur Bremer 23 years after Bremer’s attack left the 1972 presidential hopeful paralyzed. Wallace wrote, “I am a born-again Christian. I love you. I have asked our Heavenly Father to touch your heart, and I hope that you will ask Him for forgiveness of your sin so you can go to heaven like I am going to heaven.”

Fico said the man was “only a messenger of evil and political hatred,” which he accused his political opponents of stoking “to unmanageable proportions.” An official pre-trial detention order records that his attacker, 71-year-old Juraj Cintula, “decided to act,” because he views the Euroskeptic Fico “as a Judas toward the European Union” wants Fico to approve “military assistance to be given to Ukraine.”

Speaking of Ukraine ….

5. Biden abandons U.S. citizens in Ukraine, too.

Although Congress has approved $174.8 billion in aid to Ukraine in two years, the Biden administration is standing idly by while the President Volodymyr Zelensky attempts to draft U.S. citizens into his army.

As the Russian military takes its toll and Ukrainian opposition to prolonging the conflict grows, Zelensky has widened the population he’s drafted into the war effort. Zelensky signed legislation making every man between the ages of 18 and 60 eligible for military conscription. He’s also required every Ukrainian male between the ages of 18 and 60 to register with the government and carry registration documents with them at all times.

How does this affect U.S. citizens? Some Americans hold both U.S. and Ukrainian citizenship. Unfortunately for them, Ukraine does not recognize dual citizenship. Zelensky treats them as potential conscripts.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Embassy essentially told U.S. citizens entangled in Zelensky’s laws that they’re on their own:

“U.S.-Ukrainian dual citizens are therefore treated solely as Ukrainian citizens while in Ukraine and are subject to the rights and obligations of Ukrainian citizens. Under Ukraine’s martial law, men between the ages of 18 and 60 are not permitted to leave the country. Previously, dual U.S.-Ukrainian citizens in this group could enter and then depart Ukraine if they had deregistered their Ukrainian residency and registered their U.S. residency. According to our information, this exception was revoked as of June 1.”

As a result, “There is an extremely high risk you will not be allowed to depart, even with a U.S. passport.”

“The U.S. Embassy is limited in our ability to influence Ukrainian law,” said the memo.

A casual observer might believe the United States has $175 billion worth of influence over Ukrainian law, which it might exert on behalf of its own people. Instead, Biden personally apologized to Zelensky that the U.S. democratic process helped up aid delivery to his country. The apology came as his government announced it would send $225 million more U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Zelensky government. Zelensky, in turn, criticized the U.S. and other nations for not training Ukrainian pilots to fly the U.S.-provided F-16s faster.

Biden’s ill-executed withdrawal from Afghanistan left thousands of Americans trapped by the Taliban. As of this writing, Hamas still holds eight U.S. citizens hostage in Gaza. The first American hostage freed from Gaza, four-year-old Abigail Mor Edan, is the niece of a Biden donor who purchased one of Hunter Biden’s “artwork.”

This week’s underreported stories show, in war as in the economy, the Biden administration always abandons America first.

Bonus stories:

  • Psst, on Wednesday House Republicans issued criminal referrals for Hunter Biden and the president’s brother, James Biden, for allegedly lying to Congress. Curiously few legacy media outlets chose to juxtapose President Trump’s conviction with the legal troubles of his opponent’s family.
  • After years of denialism, The New York Times ran an op-ed on Monday titled, “Why the Pandemic Probably Started in a Lab, in 5 Key Points.”
  • On Tuesday, 500 non-U.S. citizens voted in the District of Columbia’s elections.
  • Democratic Rep. Gabe Vasquez (N.M.) used an anti-black slur in a phone call to his former employer in 2004.
  • New Jersey Democrats voted for a dead man in Tuesday’s primary. Although former Rep. Ronald Payne Jr. died of a heart attack in April, he won his party’s nomination this week.
  • Joe Biden has threatened to veto funding for America’s veterans, because House Republicans stripped out funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs to carry out abortions, promote transgender procedures, and promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Expert: Military’s Pride Posts ‘Prioritize the Trivial to the Detriment of the Significant’

/in , , , , , , , , , /by

In honor of Pride Month, the U.S. Navy SEALs and Naval Special Warfare Command’s Facebook page shared a post that read, with the words spread out across a rainbow background, “NSW. Dignity. Service. Respect. Equality. Pride.” The Navy SEALs, which are often regarded as one of the U.S. military’s leading and most respected fighting forces, was not able to walk away from the post free of backlash. It “brought a tsunami of criticism and ridicule,” LifeSite News reported. They added, “The message was hugely ratioed, eliciting 7,000 mostly negative comments to just 1,500 ‘likes.’”

One comment, which received significant attention, said, “This is a slap in the face of every special warfare operator that has put their lives on the line for our nation.” Adding to the criticism, the conservative Libs of TikTok, wrote, “The Navy Seals have gone woke. Our elite special forces. This is terrifying.” But it would seem the Navy SEALs were not alone in their promotion of Pride, as the Department of Defense shared a similar post. It stated, “Pride Month is a time to come together to honor the contributions of LGBTQ+ service members. We are committed to ensuring and promoting an atmosphere of dignity and respect for all civilian and military personnel.”

Followers weren’t pleased with that either, as users said things like, “You have purposely made a mockery of our country and my grandfather who died defending it.” Another commented, “Your account is a disgrace to our country. Delete it.” Additionally, someone pointed out, “This is NOT the Department of Defense’s mission. Stay out of the American people’s politics.”

In addition to this backlash, some have acknowledged the fact that June is also Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Awareness Month — which was also recognized by the Navy after the Pride post. And while other U.S. military social media accounts did not initially share posts related to Pride Month, the Air Force, Navy, Space Force, Coast Guard, and the Pentagon Force Protection Agency now have. Those accounts also received overwhelming backlash.

Lt. Gen. (Ret.) William G. Boykin, Family Research Council’s executive vice president, wasn’t surprised by the military’s Pride Month posts. He shared with The Washington Stand, “The negative comments regarding the support for Pride Month reflect the deep-seated sentiments of these sailors and other military personnel regarding the value of this woke program that exists in all the services.”

Boykin continued, “In a world like the one that we live in today, war is inevitable — and being ready for war is the responsibility of all our military leaders. I have not found anyone who can explain how this focus on the LGBT agenda is going to enhance the readiness of our armed forces.” The general added, “I personally applaud those that have the courage to say what they believe, as their expressions reflect the sentiments of the majority of people serving in our military today.”

According to Joseph Backholm, FRC’s senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement, the posts reveal a lot about the priorities of the military’s leadership. “This is yet another reminder that our current national leadership prioritizes the trivial to the detriment of the significant,” he shared with TWS.

“In theory,” he continued, “you can maintain military readiness while also posting silly and false things on social media. But we’ve seen plenty of other evidence that politics have caused our military to take their eye off the ball.” Ultimately, Backholm emphasized, “They make these statements because they believe in the cause” they’re representing. He went on to explain how, in their eyes, “negative responses” serve as fuel that “simply affirms how important it is for them to continue on the path.”

While some of the users that left negative comments wondered why the military supports an agenda many people reject, Backholm noted that, at the end of the day, it’s because the branches promoting it “don’t care that most of the country finds it bothersome and that most of the world finds it offensive.” Rather, he observed, “They have no doubt they are correct” in backing it. Backholm concluded, “They believe they are defending the oppressed and anyone who disagrees with them are one of the oppressors.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Acceptance of Men in Women’s Sports Declining: ‘A Hopeful Sign’

A Christian Response to Pride Month

X Officially Allows Social Media Platform to Become Porn Gallery

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Biden’s Military Extremism Review Overlooked the Real Extremists in the Military

/in , , , , , , , /by

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested a U.S. Marine on Friday who wanted to “bring the pain” to “a rich white area” and had studied racist mass shooters. The Marine boasted in disturbing social media posts about killing cats with a crossbow and hoping to become a serial killer, declaring, “the only way out is bloodshed.”

The arrest comes three months after an active-duty U.S. airman set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. The airman’s social media revealed connections to Antifa and the “Stop Cop City” movement, a dismissive attitude toward the death of fellow U.S. servicemembers, and praise for intimidating graffiti on the house of an elected official who sponsored Utah’s law to protect minors from gender transition procedures.

These incidents suggest that the Biden administration’s military-wide “stand-down to address extremism in the ranks” was a failure.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the “stand-down” on February 5, 2021, less than three weeks into Biden’s term. He ordered all supervisors “within the next 60 days to conduct a one-day ‘stand-down,’” where service personnel would halt their other duties and focus solely on rooting out extremism.

The stand-down was only “just the first initiative” of “a concerted effort” at combatting extremism. On April 9, 2021, Austin commissioned an independent study on extremism, convened a Countering Extremist Activity Working Group (CEAWG), and ordered reviews of the military’s extremism definition, screening questionnaires, and retirement transition checklists. In December 2021, the CEAWG released a 21-page report containing six more recommendations. On May 10, 2022, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) released a 56-page report with two additional recommendations.

Why, despite these considerable efforts, did multiple extremists manage to slip through the cracks?

The answer is unsurprising. Like nearly everything the Biden administration does, this search for extremists in the military was politically one-sided. The stand-down opportunistically seized on the then-recent January 6 incident to fearmonger about a supposedly imminent national takeover by militarized white nationalists (and, of course, those radicals who refused to take the COVID jab). There is no evidence that the stand-down ever addressed left-wing forms of extremism, such as Antifa, the anti-cop BLM riots (2020), or the violent attacks on churches and pregnancy resource centers (2022).

In fact, the 262-page independent review published by the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) in December 2023 rebuked the Biden administration’s misleading narrative about a dangerous white supremacist under-culture lurking in the military. One the one hand, their review “found no evidence that the number of violent extremists in the military is disproportionate to the number of violent extremists in the United States as a whole.” Among other evidence, a review of court-martial records dating back to 2012 found no more than “on case per year” of non-gang-related “prohibited extremist activities.”

On the other hand, the IDA rebuked the Biden administration for touting a false narrative of right-wing extremism because it “could lead to a significant division in the force along political and ideological lines, with some members of the military believing that they are being targeted for their views.” They even argued that “the risk to the military from widespread polarization and division in the ranks may be a greater risk than the radicalization of a few service members.”

Within weeks, President Joe Biden was fearmongering about right-wing extremism in yet another major speech.

Over the past four weeks, pro-terrorist occupations of college campuses (and even buildings) have served Americans with yet another warning of left-wing radicalism and its tendency to undermine civil society by targeting even non-political institutions.

In two recent examples, active members of the U.S. armed services with a history of left-leaning, extremist rhetoric reached a crisis point. One committed the ultimate act of self-harm by burning himself to death on a public sidewalk (as an act of anti-Semitism). The other was arrested for plotting a racially-motivated mass shooting — fortunately, before he executed his plan.

But don’t count on the DOD to mount a “coordinated effort” to respond to this trend anytime soon. From the favoritism of its FACE Act prosecutions, to targeting parents at school board meetings, to its retaliation against whistleblowers, to its biased prosecutions of political celebrities and their families, the Biden administration has routinely committed the very same error the IDA’s independent review warned against: creating “significant division … along political and ideological lines,” giving some Americans good reason to believe “they are being targeted for their views.”

This is why, when conducting a grandiose military extremism review that wasn’t really all that necessary, the DOD failed to discover some actual extremists lurking in the military.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

House Launches Broad Probe into China’s Infiltration of U.S.

/in , , , , , , , , , , /by

On Thursday, the House Oversight Committee announced the launch of a wide-ranging investigation into the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) efforts to infiltrate “every sector and community” in the U.S.

The probe, which has the stated objective to “thwart the CCP’s political and economic warfare campaign,” is being initiated with letters sent to nine different federal agencies requesting reports on what the agencies are doing to counter the communist regime’s efforts, along with how the agencies are coordinating their efforts with each other.

“Without firing a single bullet, the Chinese Communist Party is waging war against the U.S. by targeting, influencing, and infiltrating every economic sector and community in America,” Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) stated. “The lives and security of all Americans are affected. The Oversight Committee has a responsibility to ensure the federal government is taking every action necessary to protect Americans from the CCP’s ongoing political warfare.”

The sectors that the investigation will focus on include education, agriculture, critical infrastructure, research, energy, business, space, and technology. Examples of the CCP’s incursion into these sectors have been making headlines for decades. Here are some recent examples in each sector.

Education: Almost 150 U.S. K-12 schools have been linked to “Confucius Classrooms” which attempt to spread communist propaganda. In higher education, “Confucius Institutes” (which have now been rebranded but have the same communist goal) have popped up in dozens of American universities. In addition, the regime has given over $426 million to U.S. universities since 2011, which experts say has led to increasing influence behind closed doors.

Agriculture: Chinese companies have purchased hundreds of thousands of acres of American farmland, some of which are near U.S. military installations.

Infrastructure: The Chinese government is attempting to “covertly plant offensive malware inside U.S. critical infrastructure networks,” which is currently at “a scale greater than we’d seen before,” according to a report from FBI Director Christopher Wray in February.

Research and Technology: The CCP’s efforts to steal American scientific research and technology are well documented. Comer wrote to the National Science Foundation noting that the regime’s efforts to steal and influence research “takes a holistic approach and includes covert and legal means” and that it is attempting to weaponize “U.S.-backed research and technology for uses that are contrary to U.S. national security and competitiveness.”

Energy: In a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Comer writes that the CCP has “successfully pressured U.S. environmental players and industries into adopting initiatives that plainly benefit China at great costs to American businesses and consumers.”

Business: China’s influence over corporate America was illustrated quite clearly recently when a room full of U.S. corporate executives gave Chinese President Xi Jinping multiple standing ovations in his visit to the U.S. last November. Comer also noted the CCP’s efforts to launder money through America’s real estate and casino industries. “These activities allow the CCP to engage in corporate espionage, feed the fentanyl crisis in the U.S., influence our nation’s schools and culture, and otherwise advance destructive goals on American soil,” he wrote in a letter to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

Space: As previously reported, the regime is currently pursuing “a ‘space coercion’ strategy that includes the use of both ground-based missiles ‘capable of hitting satellites orbiting at all altitudes,’ as well as orbital missiles — including nuclear warheads.” Comer argued in a letter to NASA that China’s space program should be “properly understood for what it is: an arm of its military, the People’s Liberation Army.”

Many other threats to the U.S. posed by the CCP abound, such as a massive influx of Chinese nationals of military age being apprehended at the southern border, balloon surveillance, the discovery of CCP “police stations” in U.S. cities, and the discovery of a suspicious biolab with ties to China in California. In a letter to the Drug Enforcement Administration, Comer also voiced concern over the CCP engaging in “chemical warfare seeking to poison America with fentanyl, and how the Drug Enforcement Agency is responding.” Reports indicate that “nearly all the precursor chemicals that are needed to make fentanyl come from China.”

In a press release announcing the House investigation, Comer concluded, “Actions taken by the Committee today are just the beginning and I look forward to full cooperation from agencies as we work to thwart China’s efforts to influence and infiltrate the United States of America.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, ChinaAid Founder and President of Bob Fu stated, “It is indeed way overdue for the American people and government across the political spectrum to pay close attention and take an all of society approach to address the serious threat of the CCP’s well designed, decades in the making, comprehensive infiltration effort with unlimited warfare strategy.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.